Leeds Festival - grown up wellies and portaloos

Well I survived it - 4 days of the Leeds Festival, with lots of highlights, laughter and a few mind altering lowlights.

Following my first day spent rescuing my mules ( shoes not pack horses) from the mud of the Leeds site, I made a plea to my partner to purchase some more practical footwear, and as the festival footwear of choice or maybe necessity is the one and only grown up wellie, he kindly did just that.  So I would like to say thank you to him for delivering those to me, in a lovely shade of tank green. So what if they were different sizes, an extra pair of socks soon resolved my floppy left foot, and I was transformed into an all terrain festival goer.
 
Once kitted out with my more appropriate footwear, I felt ready for anything the weekend could throw at me, everything that is except the portaloo experience.

Myself and Jane discussed this at length, throughout the festival, not sure if it would be considered our portaloo therapy group, or just discussing tactics, speed, agility, how to get in and out with taking a breath, we also soon learned by watching the expression of those coming out of the loos, we weren't alone. I won't discuss what we saw, but the closest way of describing it, is take one exploding sheep and place it into a portaloo, leave to cool for 10 minutes then open the portaloo door. Our occasional trips outside the festival into the local services, always resulted in pure joy for the ceramic heaven experience of the ladies toilets there.
 
We spent Friday handing out text to win leaflets to the fresh faced, clean and energetic festival goer, who flew past us at warp speed, carrying their tent and supplies, keen for the festival weekend to start, we spent the last doing the same thing, but to a different version of the festival population, mud splashed, sleep deprived, dragging their tents behind them, some tents didn't make it out.

Musical highlight Day One Arctic Monkeys, really didn't expect to enjoy them, but very impressed, and not forgetting the fabulous Rockoke tent, you get to sing with a live band to a live audience. On my first trip  a young guy called Steve belted out the Kings of Leon classic Sex on Fire and just blew me away, I feel even Simon Cowell may have been forced to be complimentary with this chap, although some that followed weren't as naturally talented or maybe just less sober.
 
On Saturday we visited the Leeds sexual health clinic based on site - discovered by Mark, and spoke to them regarding the condom giveaway they were offering - they explained they were running low on condoms, so we provided some One condoms to keep their good work going, followed by some One leaflets for those passing though the tent that we may have managed to miss so far.

We also began asking those we saw drinking one water, if they would mind if we took their picture, as it may end up on our website, careful to only approach those that had a good chance of remembering having that conversation with us.

Today we also discovered the culinary delight of the Giant Yorkshire pudding - just an awesome invention, I hope to recreate at home this week.
Radiohead were the headline act on Saturday, but halfway through the set I felt I should hand my laces to and belt to someone, as like a festival Dementor I could feel my festival buzz being sucked right out of me.
 
On Sunday we succumbed to the true festival spirit and decided to dip our toe in the camping experience, armed with three tents we rolled back into Leeds, my partner Noel and Mark Jacques kindly offered to assemble these, while we wandered around the site, capturing more pictures of One water drinkers. I'm not sure what happened in the missing three hours that followed, but the atmosphere was strained when the subject of the third tent was broached, as an absence of instructions had resulted in some best guesses on its assembly, so that myself and Jane had a shelter for the night, so thank you to Mark and Noel for that.

The tent had been transformed from a three bedroomed residence to a kind of igloo option, which due to the angle of the door of the outer tent and door of the inner tent, had to be approached at a 45 degree angle in the dive position at a speed of about 5 miles an hour, to gain access without rebounding into the grass, challenging but not impossible. They had chosen an excellent spot under a tree, the construction was waterproof, and secure and that's all we needed.
 
Following a very good Kaiser Chiefs set, we waited for the Kings of Leon to start, which resulted in our group leaving the crowd to reform at the back, due to the worrying level of pushing as they did, although we all got out ok,  Jane's poncho and bottle of wine had to be sacrificed during our escape attempt, but I have to say Kings of Leon were fantastic and a perfect end to the weekend.
 
We joined the throng of people leaving at that stage and headed towards our tents to add bedding, with the intention of coming back to experience the silent disco, but once we did, we decided to remain in the tent with the wine and leave the boys to attend the silent dance. We settled down for the night hoping that the music would soon stop at 1am, well maybe 2am then, 3am has to be the end, halleluiah.
 
I eventually fell asleep, but woke occasionally and tried to change position once or twice, but realised I didn't possess the skill to perform these manoeuvres on an inflatable bed, without either waking Jane, falling off, or both, so decided a motionless option was best, and tried to go back to sleep, which I did until 4am, when we discovered that the tents were in the compound next to the security dogs, who seem to wake to discuss the day ahead at 4am, I have to say at this stage I'd pretty much made my decision that camping was not for me, as I whispered to the spider running down the side of the tent towards me, don't make me kill you, hoping Jane hadn't heard and think it was aimed at her in my sleep deprived state, although she did lie very still and quite for a long time after.
 
After a few hours of incessant dog barking we got up dressed and went to take down the One Water Posters around the site, hoping to grab a hot drink and breakfast along the way, but both stood at the entrance gate silent as we saw all the hot food and drink vans were locked up or gone, Jane then reminded me all was not lost as we could share her last bottle of One Vitamin Enhanced Water revive if all else failed.  So we collected the posters and headed back to grab the rest of the leaflets to catch the crowds heading towards the car park, on our way Jane spotted an open tent serving tea and hot sandwiches, we ate quickly and split up to hand out the remainder of the leaflets, although I have to say, to a less enthusiastic crowd, who I think were still in the never again phase of the festival, so offering the option to attend again next year as a competition prize resulted in an occasional wince or recoil...
 
All in all it was very good weekend, great to see One everywhere you looked,  and the big screen message in between every act.... just a shame the sun waited until people were going home on Monday to come out.
 
Michelle